Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Inside

The child sat alone. She looked right. She looked left. Nothing. All was good. The room was calm. Her skin was not bleeding. The room was not flooded. No attacks. The physical realm was fine.

But then the rancid voice sharply whispered to her, "Look inside."

She did not want to listen to the voice, but her curiosity controlled her.

Nimbly, she lifted the metallic key from the table in front of her. Gently, she placed the key inside of the lock above her mind (which was on her forehead), sure nothing would be wrong. Why would it? Everything was fine. Good. Well. No reason to be in trouble. Slowly, she turned the key. Calmly, the lock opened. And frantically she screamed.

An awful flood of chaos poured forth from her mind. It spread far upon the floor, oozing sickeningly and bubbling with boiling darkness. The little child cried aloud in a pitiful voice, confused and panicked. What was going on? Why was this happening?! The black tar-like fear dripped over her face, turning her eyes pitch black and filling her open mouth with foul taste. The darkness soiled her once beautiful tunic, and she shook in a huddled ball as the deep darkness suddenly engulfed her. She remembered the key, and tried desperately to seal the lock and keep out all of this, but she could not. It was too much too fast. She could not see. She could not understand.

As she slowly collapsed under the weight of the darkness, her father burst through the door, summoned by her shouts.

"What is wrong, my precious child?" He whispered, tears developing in his eyes, "It hurts me so much to see you in this way! How can I help? What is wrong?"

What is wrong?! What is wrong?! The child thought. She was dumbfounded the father did not see the flood of dark surrounding her. But she did not understand the father could not see it, for it came from the mind, and those things can not be purely seen by anyone except the sufferer.

"I am filth!" Cried the child, "I am dirt! There is darkness in me!"

"No, my child," replied the father, reaching down for the second key, "You are not filth. If this is of the head, then this is not you. But is it of the heart?"

The man turned the second key in the second lock of the girl, which is the heart. The lock opened. And to the girl's surprise, the heart glowed pure white. The heart remained untouched. Through the liquid darkness filling her lungs and eyes and mouth with pools of death, hope burst alive, and the girl smiled still. Her flailing arms subsided, and she began to calm.

"This will not last, my darling," whispered the father, holding his daughter tightly in his arms, "I may not be able to see this, but the one who holds your heart can. He knows your pain. He will stop this flood. And if you remember this, if you remember that there is a light even when you cannot see it, and you fight against this dark, your heart will remain pure. That is what matters. You just must wait."

The father held his daughter, and whispered more promises of the Greater One in her blackened ear. And they waited. And they wait.